THURSDADSDAY

Thursday has become “thursdadsday” lately. Thursday afternoons I’m trying to spend some one-on-one time with TJ. Friday after school has become Jake’s time- usually on the trampoline- till his brother’s get home. Not sure where Tyler and I are going to bond alone… but I’m gonna have to make that happen soon. But lately, I’ve also had 2 consecutive weeks of Thursday events with the boys school.

Last thursday tyler played the role of a servant to the Giant in his school play, “Jack and the Beanstalk”. It was fun to watch him. He was so excited to have his family there. He is NOT our actor, so I was just excited that he actually sang the songs. We sent him to VBS last summer and the whole stage was filled with kids belting out the songs and Tyler was standing there- with this look that said, “These people are so lame. I have no idea why they sing. I’m too cool for this.” So, his participation was a HUGE step in some direction…. I guess in the singing direction.

Then, today, I went with TJ’s class to a local nature preserve. We spent the first 20 minutes in the museum being indoctrinated into Kumeyaah Indian creation stories by a movie about how the world came about …. really made me wonder if the Genesis story sounds this utterly ridiculous to those hearing it for the first time… made me think maybe I’m as nuts as this Indian guy telling me that two creators made the place and after a war, one of them died and the coyote jockeyed for position to end up in charge, eventually eating creator number one’s heart and causing the dirt to turn red as he spilled the blood.

We then went on a hike down to the river to see this rock where the Indians would make their bread and such by mashing acorns with a rock. That’s a lot of mashing of acorns to eventually make bread. And by the way, since they must have been eating rock in minuscule amounts in their bread… I’m gonna try adding a pinch of granite dust to my cereal in honor of those who used to have to grind acorns.

We then ate lunch, hiked back out, and I learned the fine art of how as a teacher- by the end of the day- you want to strangle the kid who won’t stop breathing on you as you walk… Oh… and teacher’s evidently have hand signals for everything. I have not maximized this learning yet and I need to get on it. She raises her hand and everyone has to shut up before her finger count down goes from 5 fingers to a fist. I’m thinking maybe this would work in youth group- yeah right…. Then she also does this thing where she has numbered the class, and if she wants to know if anyone is missing, she just does this count down thingy and everyone has a number that is memorized that is their number. They count down from 1-20 and these kids even know who is missing- by number alone. Like walk up to class and say, I’m missing #11- who is gone. They can tell you. Yep… my kid is being indoctrinated. Lord help us.